An Ebon Winged Devil
by Gameofmetal
Summary: A fictional conclusion to Abigail William's story in the years following the events of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Abigail, having made a new life some years after the Salem Witch Trials, is forced to face a supernatural threat to her home as well as her past sins.


An Ebon Winged Devil

Abi stared at the letter. "Dear Betty," it began. "I am grieved to hear of the passing of your mother, Elizabeth." After that the words couldn't come to her. She knew they were false. Betty's father, Samuel, was a greedy, envious fool and his late wife a mad shrew and she had hated the both of them during her time in their home. Betty was a good girl though. The letter was for her grief; Abi had none to spare. She dipped the pen back into the ink pot and left it there. Perhaps I shall finish tomorrow, she thought. Or I could visit her, quietly and under cover of darkness of course, but I could do it. She sighed. A flight of fancy. I can never return to Salem again, not again in my entire life.

She rose and smoothed her dress out before peering out the window at the fields beyond. The negroes were still working, though the sunset was fast approaching. There was a knock at the door and her house slave, Mimba, appeared. Abi fancied that Mimba must have read her thoughts and said, "Tell the field negroes they are done for the day and see that the children are in their room before you go." The old negro woman nodded and left.

Abi sat on the window sill and stared out over the long field rows until the sun set. To this day her good fortune surprised her. After what had happened in Salem, she thought running would only delay the inevitable, even more so when she was robbed of all the money she'd taken from her uncle not a hundred feet from the ship upon which she had booked passage. She would be hanged as a witch if she stayed in one place for too long and so she ran across Massachusetts and New York for the better part of the year. When she met James, it seemed a miracle. James was a wealthy spice merchant trying his hand at running a plantation, widowed just months before they had met. He came to the colonies trying to find a new beginning. She didn't love him, but he was comely enough for an older man and treated her well. There was some affection. The children she'd borne were all she could ask for and it was quite the treat to so quickly become the lady of a plantation. There was so very little for Abi to complain about. Her life was one of comfort and satisfaction.

She heard a knock at the door and the other house slave, Juba, entered. "Ma'am, they's a man at the do' askin' for ya'."

She rose, not expecting visitors. "Who is he?"

"I don't rightly know ma'am, but he looks like'a preacha' or somethin'."

A preacher? She had made a point of avoiding church since Salem, in so far as she could without attracting attention. Occasionally she had to suffer a prayer or three, but most of the time she could talk her way out of Sunday sermons. What could a preacher be doing here?

Abi hurried down the staircase, but slowed on her way to the door. Juba had left it closed. Her pace slowed sluggishly, like she was fighting some invisible force. There was something repelling her from the doorway, but she pushed through and opened it to find the visitor's back to her. He was clothed in a brown woolen coat, and a black wide-brimmed hat sat on his head over long brown hair that came down to his shoulders. Her heart jerked in her chest before he turned to face her, a premonition of what was to come. The man's face showed only a few creases for age, and he wore no beard, but it was his eyes that caught her. They saw into hers with a horrible recognition, a recognition of who she was and why he hated her. It was Reverend John Hale.

An awful, knowing smile crept over his face. "Abigail Williams," he said, like he was chewing on some sour fruit. "Let it never be said that the Devil doth not reward his servants."

She backed away from him a step, mouth open and heart beating furiously. "What...how…?" she stammered. Words failed her.

"God sees all Abigail, and forgives much, though only of those who ask it. He showed me the way to you, for you have paid no penance yet. All you have, all you hold, it was given you by the Devil, not God. And today he has sent me to tell you it is so." He took a step into the house after her.

Abi found her courage and did not back away again. He carried no weapon, no knife nor pistol. The Reverend had been a man of God and a man of words, but not a man of violence. She hoped that held true today. "Damn you, Hale, say what you would have of me and be gone, before I have you thrown out."

Hale spat at her feet viciously. "I would have nothing of you Abigail, nothing but justice. I have come for justice for the innocents you saw to the gallows."

Abi did back away a few steps then, back towards the kitchen where she could find a knife. "I did not take you for a murderer of women Hale. Even God would not condone such a thing."

"What would a whore know of God?" he returned, following.

She wore a wicked smile. "Oh, but did you not know that whores know more of God even than ministers? It only makes sense, their daily duties have drawn the most fervent prayers to God. Never have men been so pious than when they were in bed with me." She paused. "Proctor could tell you this truth, were he here."

"Quiet!" Hale roared. He started to charge her but she backed away rapidly and he pulled up short. "Not another word from you, whore. Do not speak his name."

"John Proctor!" she spat the name in his face. "He fucked me and then threw me aside when he was done with me and his shrew of a wife found out. Not a care in the world for my feelings or my future. That was your man of God. An adulterer and a liar!"

Hale grew silent, a nerve struck raw she thought, but a smile crept over his lips. "Abigail Williams, your time to repent is nigh, but it is not to me that you will confess. What I have brought you tonight is a warning and nothing more. A warning that you cannot run and hide any longer. In this house you've locked yourself away in, seemingly safe and unreachable, you will be reached. You will not be safe. He is coming to hear your confession. He will listen, but he will not leave empty handed." He turned abruptly and headed for the door.

"I fear nothing that God can deliver to me," she shouted at his back. "God is nothing. Proctor said it in the water that day, God is dead Reverend. He gives nothing to his servants, no punishment to those like me. Justice is delivered by the hands of men, and so often is it dropped through loose fingers." Her hands shook violently.

He turned. "Pray while you can Abigail," he said. "God will hear you." And with that, he left her.

Abi shivered. It's the cold. The door was open and let the breeze in, she told herself. She backed into the kitchen and leaned over the table, hands flat on the surface to balance herself. James will return tomorrow. There are servants here to protect me, I am safe. She realized how exhausted she was so she made her way upstairs to her bedroom and lay down to sleep. Even as her eyes closed she still saw Reverend Hale staring back at her, all fire and brimstone.

She was startled awake by the sound of a bird, a shrill cawing that split her mind in two. She sat up, eyes darting across the lavish bedroom, but there was no sign of the bird. Her eyes lingered on the portrait that hung from the wall opposite her bed. It was a depiction of her husband, sitting at the little table on their porch. The angle was done so that it could catch the tree that grew beyond the railing. In the lowest branch, just a few inches above James' head, a raven stood. She remembered the day well. The bird had stood motionless when the painter began his work and did not move until the job was done, as though it thought itself the subject of the portrait. It flew away the moment the portrait had been finished. Now it stared back at her, eyes black and mysterious and somehow knowing.

She rose shakily and went to the window. The corn fields were dark with streaks of light from where the moon shone down on them, but no birds glided over the stalks nor did she hear any from the three or four trees spotted here and there about the yard. Just as she started to turn away, a half dozen of the corn stalks rustled visibly. She leaned in closer until her nose was a hair from the glass. The stalks rustled again, and then some to the right rustled as well, and then more to the right until it was clear that whatever was there was moving across the field. Halfway across the field, a pointy wide brimmed hat poked up above the stalks.

Abi breathed slowly. It's just one of the field negroes, she told herself. Her relief turned to rage. What on earth is one of the field negroes doing rustling around in the field. Most likely it was a thief stealing corn, perhaps planning to escape. She would have to have him caught and whipped, whoever he was. Abi squinted at the hat closely, watching as it neared the edge of the field. Maybe I can see his face when he gets clear of the corn, she thought. But the moment the hat wearer reached the edge of the field and would have stepped into the moonlight, it vanished.

Abi's breath caught in her throat. Where did he go? Did I blink and miss him? Did he duck down when he realized I was watching? Her already rapidly beating heart threatened to burst from her chest when she decided that she hadn't blinked and missed anything. The figure had simply vanished.

Abi backed away from the window slowly, breath ragged. She willed herself to calm, though it took what felt like an hour before she didn't feel like she might explode at any moment. I must have imagined it, she told herself. I'm tired, it's the middle of the night. There was no man. She shivered and saw that the fire was out so she went to stoke it again. The ashes shifted under the prodding of her poker, but the flames didn't catch again immediately. She pressed harder. Suddenly the ashes sparked vibrantly and flame came roaring to life so violently that she flinched backwards onto her rear. She had to shield her eyes against the fire, now burning like one fashioned from a pile of dry twigs and branches rather than one drawn from old ashes.

Abi rose shakily to her feet, grabbing a blanket and pulling it close about her. A strange night this is, she thought. First Hale came calling, and now these bizarre occurrences. She remembered what Hale had said. You will not be safe. Nonsense. God is dead or has never existed. It is only my mind. Hale has made me fearful of the nonexistent. She pulled a chair nearer to the fire, only so close as she was still somewhat skittish of the flame, and sat with a blanket pulled tight around her. With time, her fears began to vanish and she found sleep once more.

Hale haunted her dreams. She was in the chapel in Salem again and the reverend was at his work, though now he was happy and energetic, bounding back and forth before the congregation, rather than the hateful, vengeful thing she knew now. She sat in the front row, but he seemed not to notice her at first. To her right sat Betty Parish, and to her left Mary Warren. Mary smiled at her, but Abi felt a twinge of regret looking at her. Mary alone was reluctant to assist the other girls in their story, and she had paid for it with much pain and fear. She was a fool, but a kind-hearted fool and Abi wished she had done things differently if only for her sake.

Hale finally noticed her. "Abigail Williams," he said slowly. His eyes looked out over the congregation. "The devil has come among us good folk. Let not a pretty face deceive thee, for the gaze of Satan himself lurks behind that visage."

Abi looked around to find the congregation murmuring excitedly and staring at her. "No!" she cried. "He lies! I love only God." It was too late. Mary and Betty had jumped up and ran from her side and the congregation was screaming cruel words and pointing at her. The voices rose until the insults and accusations blended into horrific noise, piercing her ears. She turned this way and that, screaming from the pain but looking for a friendly face in the mob. But it was Hale who found her and pressed his cross to her forehead. "Let the devil begone from thee Abigail Williams! Let the light of God return to thee!" She screamed louder and all became as darkness.

Abi leapt up violently, the blanket pooling around her feet. She clutched her chest, vainly trying to still her heart which beat with the force of a tornado. A flash of black in the corner of her eyes pulled her attention from herself and she was shocked to find a raven flapping and cawing about the room, from one corner to the other and back again. How did it get in here, she wondered. The window was barred and the door closed. She went for the door, meaning to find a broom and chase the bird out, but the door handle didn't budge when she tried to turn it.

She froze for a moment, then tried again. Still the handle refused to turn. She tried harder, becoming more desperate as the door still refused to open. Open God damn you! The caws stopped ominously behind her.

Abi turned. The raven had settled on the mantle and turned its head so that one black eye watched her. The bird mirrored its pose in the portrait above. That gaze sent a bizarre shiver of anger through Abi. "What are you staring at, you black beast?! Damn you!" she cried and grabbed a book lying on the table nearby and threw it at the bird. The bird made no response when the book slammed into the wall a foot away.

That black eye stared at her imperiously, so much so that she found herself stricken still by its unnatural attention. With a shiver she backed into the corner and fell to her knees, pulling herself tightly together for both warmth and protection. Still uncertain as to why she felt the need to query at a wild bird, nonetheless she asked, "What do you want, creature?" Even after asking the question, somehow Abi still didn't expect the answer.

"Why...you," croaked words from the beak of that black bird. "I am here for you, Abigail Williams." As she mouthed wordlessly at the beast, shocked beyond all description, the bird laughed a terrible screeching, grating laugh, somewhere between a raven's song and a man's cry. Before her widened eyes the raven took wing and in one swift, alien movement descended to the floor. As it did so its form changed in a way that defied understanding, features smoothly shifting from the tiny black wings of a raven to the cloaked arms of a man. Within moments a shrouded figure stood before her, all in ebony and with a hood over its face to hide all its features from her. Abi gave a little yelp, but she could not find it in her do anything else.

It approached her, slow as poured molasses. With every agonizing step Abi pulled herself back tight against the wall until her back ached from how hard she pressed it against the wood. The figure stood over her, hood tilted down toward her, but the darkness within was too dense to make out a face or even the outline of one. It was as though only darkness lived in that hood.

Shockingly to her, the voice that issued from that darkness was not the guttural gurgle she would liken to a demon's tone, nor the aged cackle of a witch. Rather it was an impossibly even, unnaturally emotionless voice. There was no judgement in that voice even as it told her, "Look to your sins, Abigail. They have come to visit you."

Her voice betrayed her, shuddering and breaking as she whispered weakly, "What are you?"

"A simple messenger," the thing said, deathly motionless as it spoke.

"What message?"

"I have given it to you already." Look to your sins, Abigail. The thing continued, "I must also witness."

"What are you here to witness?"

"I must witness you. All that is here in this room and all that is outside it. All that happens in this moment, all that has happened and all that will in the near future."

"What does that mean?!" she shrieked. Her fear and frustration was boiling over, in its place came a semblance of courage. "What do you want from me? I have sinned, I admit it, but I cannot take them back. Nothing can change my past now, not me and not you, demon!"

There was no surprise, no anger, and no sympathy in the being's voice when it said, "It is not for me to decide what is required you. I have delivered my message and now I must witness." With a sharp, sudden turn so unexpected that Abi flinched back hard enough to bash her head against the wall, the being moved away with flurries of shadow rising to obscure its back from her. When the shadows faded, she saw that the being was gone.

Abi jumped up and leapt into her bed, pulling the blankets around her tightly. Tears streamed down her face and for nearly an hour she could only shake uncontrollably under the covers and gasp short sobbing breaths.

My sins. Her mind flashed through her memories of Salem. She hadn't come to the Proctors free of sin, but she left their home with a grievous one. Lust, fornication, and adultery. How tame these things seem in hindsight. The lies that led to the witch hunts: her pride as the leader of the Salem girls. Once the trials began she had thought herself immovable, fat with hubris. Her wrath was a fearsome thing with that power, but she pushed too far, too hard. Accusing Hale's wife was foolhardy and so the game ended. To this day she wondered if there hadn't been some witchcraft at work in Salem. It was only once she'd be at sea for a time that the guilt began. In Salem she'd felt not a thing sending so many to the gallows. Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, Sarah Good, countless others. And John most of all.

There came a delicate rapping at the door.

Abi leapt up. It wasn't the pounding of the Devil coming for her soul, but light and polite, like that of the house negroes. It must be Mimba, she thought, and went to answer it. The figure standing on the other side of that door was indeed a woman, but it was not Mimba, nor a negro at all. Facing her calmly was Rebecca Nurse.

No...she's dead, she was hanged. The Rebecca Nurse she knew from Salem would not have made her flinch back the way she did when she saw the Rebecca Nurse standing before her. This Rebecca Nurse was a living cadaver, eyes sunken in and bits of her face rotted away. She still wore the same clothes, a modest little Puritan dress and hat, hands folded over each other down at her navel and her back straight and perfect as a cross. Her skin was a milky white, sapped of sunlight. Dirt spotted her clothing from head to toe, but it was the haunting smile on her face that was the most terrifying part. The smile was identical to the one Rebecca wore every single day of her life, the one she gave to everyone in Salem no matter who they were. That smile was one of comfort. This spectral, rotted smile was the most horrifying thing Abigail would ever see.

The thing that might have once been Rebecca motioned for her to follow and disappeared into the hallway. Abi found herself unable to move for several moments. She saw a letter opener lying atop the nearby desk and grabbed it before entering the hallway.

With a shiver, Abi saw that the ghoul was not truly walking down the hall, but was hovering an inch above the ground, oozing silently down the passageway. At the end, it turned back and motioned again for her to follow. Abi considered, bizarrely for the first time, her children. Their rooms were further down the hall and her heart jumped at the thought of what might have been happening to them. She swung and found herself face to face with a colossal figure that blocked her path completely. Like Rebecca, the thing's clothes were dulled from their old color and spotted with dirt, but instead of a Puritan woman's dress, it wore the garb of a Salem farmer. Its sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, revealing arms thick and hairy as an ape. Her trepidation was a knowing one as she looked up into the dead features of Giles Corey.

Voice trembling, she said, "Move aside demon, I must see to my children."

The monster stared down at her, curious though it was to be stared at so intently by a being with only two rotted eye sockets remaining. Though Giles had been aged by the time of his death, he was still a large and very muscular man, a man quite used to labor. He had a temper too. She hoped that had been lost in death as well.

The monster's mouth opened to reveal only shards of broken teeth. "More weight," it said in a guttural rumble. Giles' last words, she knew, when he was pressed to death. The words were his final defiance. He would give no confession, even under the stones.

Behind her Rebecca said, "He is here to ensure your cooperation. He will not allow you through. Your children will wait." Somehow more chilling than Giles' grotesque tone was the fact that the ghoul wearing Rebecca's face used the same voice she had in life. Where the body had decayed, the voice had not changed a bit. Like her smile.

"Wait for what?" she asked.

The ghoul hadn't turned though it addressed her. "For the dawn."

"What happens at dawn?" she asked, though she didn't truly want to know the answer.

The ghoul didn't answer, but instead continued on to the ground floor. Abi looked at Giles again before following. Her thoughts were of only her children.

She followed the ghoul down the staircase and toward the dining room. As they passed the front door, Abi had a fleeting instinct to attempt a mad dash into the night. When she remembered her children, she felt the shame. The thought that she would consider, even for a single moment, abandoning them in a house haunted by devils and demons was unforgivable. With leaden steps she entered the dining room.

What she found there left her stunned.

A feast had been laid out, plates and silverware and candles at every seat. The food was obscured beneath silken cloth, but there was surely a great deal of it to judge by the large humps underneath.

And every seat was taken, save the one at the head of the table.

In each place, calmly seated before their empty plates and undisturbed food sat someone she knew from Salem. There was Bridget Bishop and Sarah Good, George Jacobs Sr. and John Willard, half a dozen others she knew from a lifetime ago. And each was in the same state of undeath that Rebecca and Giles were. Can they eat, she asked herself. What would happen if they tried? Would their teeth fall out? If they could chew it, where would it go once it went down their throat? The insanity of these questions was not lost on her, but at this point she wasn't sure what else to think or do.

"Take your seat, Abigail," Rebecca Nurse said, standing stoically to the side. Abi almost backed away until she felt the presence of Giles Corey behind her. She couldn't hear his breath as he wasn't taking any and his footsteps were silent, but she knew he was there as surely as if he'd tramped loudly up behind her and screamed in her ear. With dizzying steps she edged around the gathering, shivering each time their dead faces turned a fraction to track her with the corner of an eye. She sat.

Her eyes lingered on the table top, on the decorative cloth covering it, on the gleaming plate and silverware before her. She was afraid to look at them. Her pulse was quick and her breathing ragged. My heart, it beats so loudly. She was acutely aware that the only noise that existed in the room came from her, for they sat still and unbreathing. Finally, she faced them.

Their eyes watched her. Or at least, the eyes that remained to them. Many of them were missing one or even both as Giles was. The eyes that remained to them were terrifying, pale or colorless things that watched, unwavering. Her heart gave a lurch when she realized she couldn't see Giles, but then she felt that presence again, behind her. She hadn't thought she could become more anxious, but she did.

The silence became too much. "Say something, damn you," she murmured.

"What would you have them say, Abigail?" Rebecca Nurse said. "There are no words left to them, their voices have been silenced." The creature cocked its head slightly, the first reaction that might be described as human. "They are dead, thanks in no small part to you."

"Then speak for them. You have made me afraid, you have made me weak, but ignorance is a torment too terrible to endure. What do you want of me?"

"If it is ignorance that hurts you so much, then why should we remove its grip? With your sins in mind, do you think we would ever deny you your greatest torment. If ignorance hurts you so much, then we are content to let it continue."

"I suppose I must guess then." Abi stared at the creature for a long time, thinking. Her eyes passed over the gathering and lingered on Sarah Good, remembering her trial, one of the first. The memory of the crowd turned against her so quickly under the weight of her testimony. It came to her. "I am put on trial, in vengeance for your sentencings. You were all hanged or pressed on my word and other's. So now I am held under your word."

"Some would call that justice."

"Aye, the Devil would," she replied bitterly. Rebecca's mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly. "Very well then. Must I hear my long list of crimes now? Will you state them one by one, clearly and without faulty detail, as it would be done in a court of law?"

"You ought to know your crimes better than anyone at this table. Perhaps it is fitting that we listen once again to the charges, and take satisfaction that it is yours brought to light this time, instead of lies."

"Damn you!" She slammed her hand against the table top. "Where are my children?" she demanded. "Where are they? Have you touched them?"

Rebecca, unperturbed by Abi's fury, turned to Francis Nurse. "Francis," she urged gently. Her husband rose carefully and reached over to grasp an edge of the silk that draped over the large platter in the center of the table. With a lurch he pulled it back.

In that one horrible moment, Abi's heart stopped beating entirely.

Her daughter, Mary, lay serenely atop the platter, nude and perfect as the day she was born. At first Abi told herself she was just sleeping, but with a choking gasp she understood that Mary wasn't breathing. The girl's tiny chest did not rise and fall with breath, but was still. She started to reach for her, but her hand shook violently and fell limply.

"Giles," Rebecca said softly. "Friends." The congregation pulled away the cloth covering their plates. Giles reached around Abi's shuddering form to do the same for her. As one, the cloth was lifted away to reveal a dismembered body part on each plate. A hand here, a thigh there, here a foot, and before Abi lay the head of her son, Jonathan, eyes wide and staring.

A wordless, horrific sound issued from her mouth, an expulsion of terror and pain unrecognizable as a voice. She came storming to her feet, screeching. The dead rose jerkily to match her and Giles grabbed her by the shoulder. Abi snatched up a knife and buried it in Giles' eye socket. He reeled back against the wall, roaring. So you still remember pain, demon.

Hands reached out to here from a multitude of directions, but there were no voices behind them. Only silence, demon mouths holding perfectly thin lines on dead faces. She lashed out with the blade, cutting a deep wound through Bridget Bishop's face. The demon flinched away, but they came on. Abi fled.

The second doorway was behind her and open. Abi sprinted through the next room and the next after. The undead's footsteps sounded behind her, most terribly among them were the stomping strides of Giles Corey. There was no thought to her path, but she found herself at the staircase, and before that had registered she was halfway down the long corridor. In her mind was only the sight of her children's faces; serene, lifeless, and horrific. The tears came even as she ran, a waterfall down bloodless cheeks.

A sleepy voice called out, "Mother." Abigail stopped. The tears resumed a thousand times more fiercely.

Jonathan rubbed his eyes and looked at her, the alarm an adult would feel at the sight of her terrified and panicked self lost on a child so innocent to the world. Mary casually appeared behind him staring with a bleary gaze. Abi rushed forward and crushed them both in a hug so fierce she thought she must have snapped their tiny little spines. Two pairs of arms wrapped around her and for a moment Abi felt happy and safe.

When she dared to open her eyes, she found that she was holding onto nothing. Her children were gone and she was again in her bedchamber. She raced for the door, finding it locked. She panicked and pounded the door with both fists until her forearms were battered and bruised. Finally she fell, weeping. "God," she cried out. "God, take me, punish me as you would, but leave my children. Please God, leave my children. Let them live to be happy and hale, and grow old to have children of their own. Let them never know the sins of their mother and be punished for them. Let them live!" A wordless shriek punctuated the maelstrom of fear and grief and remorse. Exhausted, she slumped against the door, as near to lifeless as a woman could be whilst still clinging dearly on.

The raven croaked. It had been silent, but now it called to her from the bed. Then it flapped into the air and transformed. The hooded messenger stood before her. There was no more will to scream or weep now, she only waited.

The thing watched her for a while. "Are you broken, Abigail Williams?" it asked finally.

"I am," she said. "You may take me now."

"What has broken you? Have you seen the evil of your crimes at long last? Has their weight brought you to your knees? Will you now repent?"

"The loss of my children has done it," she replied, voice flat.

"But not your crimes? You will not repent?"

"I will not. My children are...were all I had. Now I am nothing."

"There is no regret in you for the deaths you have caused? The innocents that died at Salem, Abigail? You were their judge, their executioner." Abi thought she heard an edge creeping into the thing's voice for a moment.

"Damn them to hell I say. I will see them there," she retorted.

The thing's clock swirled up as gusts of wind battered the room suddenly. Abi reflexively lifted her arms to protect herself, then lowered them. This is the beginning of my punishment. I will not hide from it. The gale beat against her face viciously, but she would not flinch away from it, she withstood it.

Slowly it faded. The hooded thing, which had stood motionless throughout, knelt before her. "Would you damn me as well, Abigail?" it asked, pulling its hood back. The face beneath was one she thought never to see again. John Proctor.

"John," she murmured breathlessly. She reached a hand out to touch his face. His skin felt human, the stubble of his beard seemed real enough, but she flinched away.

"Would you?" he asked again.

"Never," she replied.

He nodded and took her hand, lifting her tenderly to her feet. They went to the bed and sat. "Are you real?" she asked.

"For now," he answered. "You should know that your children are safe and well, undisturbed."

Her breath caught. "They are? I must see them." She jumped up and rushed for the door.

"No," she heard him say. "The door is closed to you." She had no reason not to believe him, but still she tried and found the door locked. "Come here."

She did as she was told, shaking with something between anger and fear.

"They will live long and happy lives, I promise. Your husband as well. He will never remarry, but he will find some measure of happiness in your absence."

Long and happy lives...without me. "And what of me?" She had to ask.

John's face was sad. Or perhaps the thing that wore John's face. She could not be sure which it was. "God has seen virtue in you. Your love for your children is real. You do not love your husband truly, but he has done no ill in his life to deserve punishment. There is some regret for what happened in Salem, but for too much do you lack remorse. All men must face consequence, women as well. You know this."

So this is the end. She supposed it was a long time in coming. The gall of her to think that she could escape punishment for Salem. She should have known better. "Will they remember me? My children?"

"They will not. It is part of your punishment and it is better that they not know grief of you. Nor will your husband tell them, he will hold the sorrow to himself and that will be the end of it."

The tears began, soft but steady. With the last of her strength she looked into John's eyes, summoning her fierceness, the last of herself. "I am ready." Goodbye, thee born of me. I love you.

John took her gently and laid her back in the bed, as though she were a child urged to sleep by a parent. "There will be no pain in the passing." He paused. "I am sorry."

When he said that, those three small words that could be so very large, she knew it was John Proctor, the real John Proctor made messenger of God. I'm sorry I don't regret the others at Salem, but I do regret you, John. I'm sorry. Perhaps you can forgive me.

God is not dead, John. Perhaps she had only tricked herself into believing it.

He touched her cheek and all that was life flew from her, leaving only a husk that had once been Abigail Williams.


End file.
